Meet Fresh
Meet Fresh is a popular dessert chain from Taiwan that specializes in fresh taro balls, and herbal jelly. The franchise is started by brother and sister who were born and raised in a farming family in Central Taiwan using selected food ingredients and traditional processes, they made soft taro ball, and herbal jelly desserts to start the business. Seating is first come first serve. Customers place their order at the front counter. You'll be given a buzzer to notify you when your order is ready for pick-up.
WHAT WE TRIED:
Iced Meet Fresh Signature | $12.50 | Herbal Jelly, Herbal Blended Ice, and Taro Balls
Purple Rice Porridge | $7.50
Q Mochi & Egg Pudding Combo | $5.75
Boba Milk Tea | $6
Iced Meet Fresh Signature
The Iced Meet Fresh Signature was tasty! The herbal jelly has a silky texture. The herbal ice blend and sugar is under the jelly and taro mochi. It is served with two packets of cream that you can pour in. We recommend you eat some herbal jelly first, then add the cream and mix it up to get the sugars and ice integrated. You can ask for more cream and syrup or sugar if needed. I read from other reviewers that they charge for extra cream, and bowls to share but we were not charged when asking for 2 extra bowls and cream.
Q Mochi & Egg Pudding Combo
The Q Mochi and Egg pudding Combo was alright. It looked pretty but nothing too wow about it to prompt us to order it again.
Purple Rice Porridge needed more sugar. It was definitely not nearly sweet enough. Taste a bit and if it's not sweet enough for you request for some syrup to adjust to the desired sweetness. We also added some cream into ours.
There is a return station where customers are expected to bring back their dirty dishes. The seating area was pretty clean considering customers are expected to clear the tables themselves.
On social media, many foodies are posting the desserts as grass jelly. I just wanted to clarify that they do not sell grass jelly here. It is all herbal jelly! The friend that came with us is allergic to herbal jelly so we asked if we could substitute for grass jelly. The staff told us they don't carry any grass jelly and a lot of people confuse their mild tasting herbal jelly as grass jelly.
Grass Jelly vs Herbal Jelly:
Grass Jelly (Liang Fen) is made from a mint family plant called Platostoma palustre.
Herbal Jelly aka Turtle Jelly (Gui Ling Gao) is made from ground turtle shell (powder form) and a variety of herbal products. The real stuff is much more expensive usually $20-50 a bowl. Looking at the prices here they probably use imitation ingredients.
Parking can be difficult to find during peak hours.
Trying to find the prices online is difficult. On Meet Fresh's Canadian website, the menu link doesn't work. There are photos of the hard copy menu from bloggers but there are no prices listed on the paper menu. We had to go through photos on Yelp to find an image of the prices that are only listed on a TV screen in-store. Hopefully they can fix their Canadian website to list the prices!
OVERALL IMPRESSION OF MEET FRESH:
Meet Fresh delivers generous portions of herbal jelly desserts. If it's your first time we suggest sticking with the herbal jelly and taro mochi desserts to avoid disappointment as their other stuff is mediocre. You can find the other desserts elsewhere for cheaper and better. If there are any dishes or drinks you love at Meet Fresh and think we should try it next time, feel free to contact us!
The Bad:
Other desserts weren't that impressive
Desserts felt overpriced for many items
The Good:
Nice herbal jelly and taro mochi desserts
Very clean dine-in area
Rating: 7.25/10
DETAILS:
Facebook: /MeetFreshToronto
Instagram: @meetfreshtoronto
Twitter: @meet_fresh
Website: MeetFresh.ca